Masayuki Sanada

Masayuki Sanada (1547-13 July 1611) was the daimyo of the Sanada clan and a former vassal of the Takeda. During the 1570s-1580s he fought against the Tokugawa clan and eventually lost his lands to them during the Sekigahara Campaign. He was the father of Yukimura Sanada and the treacherous Nobuyuki Sanada.

Biography
Masayuki served with the Takeda clan during its heyday, fighting in the conflict in the Kanto Region. He was a veteran of the Battle of Mikatagahara along with his son Yukimura Sanada and later the Battle of Nagashino in 1575, after which he was left independent; the Takeda were all but destroyed. After the final defeat of the Takeda in 1582 he established himself as an independent daimyo of a new Sanada clan in Shinano and Kozuke provinces.

In 1585, Masayuki had to fight Ieyasu Tokugawa when he attempted to take Ueda Castle in Shinano from the Sanada clan. Gaining the support of the Uesugi, Maeda, and Date, among other volunteers, he repelled this attack by using fire attacks and ambushes. Tokugawa married his retainer Tadakatsu Honda's daughter Ina to his son Nobuyuki Sanada as a sign of respect, and Masayuki enjoyed friendly relations with both the Tokugawa and Toyotomi until the death of Hideyoshi Hashiba in 1598.

While Masayuki was a loyalist of the Toyotomi Shogunate, Nobuyuki became an ally of his wife's clan, the Tokugawa/Honda. Masayuki led the Shinano-no-Sanada clan in the Sekigahara Campaign, fighting against the Kozuke-no-Sanada branch, led by Masayuki. In 1600 he led an attack on Numata Castle, his son's stronghold, but as victory drew near, he learned of the Toyotomi commander Mitsunari Ishida's death in the Battle of Sekigahara and was forced to surrender to the Tokugawa clan. He was stripped of his title of Lord of Ueda, which was given to Nobuyuki. Exiled to Kudoyama in Kii Province, he died at the age of 64.